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Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

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Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with @navane, you're concerned about what is very much a minority edge case. Still, I'll bite - it's a good thing. Why? Well an official path to suicide, as per the arrangements already in place, comes with layers of professional guidance and counselling. It's not a dispassionate "wave 'em through" treadmill of corpse creation. The best thing for young people with suicidal affixations is to talk to them and take…

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> The primary goal is to physically exterminate the population.

Um, source?

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system in Canada results in the state killing homeless and disabled people rather than offering them support.

Does it? Or is this what anti-euthanasia advocates are spreading as misinformation around to acquire the support of progressives to their cause (which is driven not out of a care for homeless and disabled people, but out of religious/conservative mindsets) Keep mind: I'm not asking "Do those cases ever happen"? Of course they do. There's already been stories. The question is what are the statistics. Every policy, eve…

And note that the stories aren't always accurate portrayals of what happened.

I remember reading about one where someone drugged their mother to bring her in for euthanasia. What the naysayers didn't report was that that was by her own wishes--she knew her mind was going and set it up for when it was too far gone. I have no problem with that.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#633
post #578
post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I would opt for an end on my terms that respected my dignity and that of my family. As an American, however, I expect to die like he did: poor, mostly alone, and in pain." I think there is more than enough info about how to end it painlessly should one decide to part. No 3rd parties needed assuming that person is still mentally and physically adequate enough.

That's just it: I wouldn't trust myself to be expert enough to do it properly. That, of all the things I might be asked to experience in life, begs for a knowledgeable, caring expert. You're right, of course, but that raises the endlessly fascinating question of why more people don't make that choice.

It is probably hidden a lot more than we think when old and sick people make that choice. When you're weak enough and want to end your life, it might not be a huge effort, and it might not be noticeable. And health care people probably hide it sometimes to not upset relatives.

When you have young and healthy people, it's not that easy to hide a suicide, because suspicions of murder will naturally arise.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#634

After watching my father die with COPD, it because obvious that euthanasia happens in the US all the time. He opted out of lung-reduction surgery and was ready to die. So the hospital withheld IV hydration and provided a morphine drip and he was gone in 36 hours. How long can one live without water, a few days max? So that's what killed him. My sister-in-law who's a physician told me that's how it's typically done. I…

> So the hospital withheld IV hydration and provided a morphine drip and he was gone in 36 hours. I watched loved ones die this way. It's cruel, absurd and grotesque. A doctor will look you dead in the eye and say "your loved one will be dead within a few days" and instead of killing them mercifully you are forced to watch them die of dehydration. A maddening and indefensible relic that I believe younger generations…

Death by dehydration, at least for an old sick person, is rather natural and though it sounds awful it’s not really painful for the dying person. Before IV hydration it’s how most people died.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I posted this quote in another comment, but felt the harshness of your tone may have been dervied from the topic of Christianity. Christianity isn't the only religion/world view that has the perspective that your life has value to others, even if you yourself feel doomed. From the Havamal, the wise words of Odin: > The lame can ride a horse, the handless drive cattle, the deaf can fight and win. It’s better even to b…

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Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#637
post #590
post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That concerns a small minority of cases, the vast majority is elderly dying people who want to keep their dignity. By steering the discussion to that minority, which even itself is still debatable, you risk flushing the child with the bath water.

The same logic applies to capital punishment

I don't think Canada has the death penalty.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad (age 75) got diagnosed with ALS and within a month of the diagnosis opted for MAID. He had only just lost control of one leg, but he knew what was coming. As much as we begged him for more time, he didn't want any of it. Till his dying breath he kept repeating how thankful he was that he lived in a country that didn't force him to live on when he didn't want to. He was a clear Track 1 case, and I realize Track…

Yeah man, it does suck. I do wish I'd had more time with both my parents, they both died really early in their 50s, I don't think you can ever have "enough" time. I wish my mother had been given the option in her early 50s, the number of people punished by authoritarian governments that deny self determinism and force people to be put through experiences literally worse than torture is mind boggling, I cannot fathom…

> I just can't be uncharitable enough to believe a person who has seen it first hand, that a person would embrace such unfettered cruelty as to deny a person living in constant hell a drop of water.

I have seen it first hand. Suicide is not a drop of water, it's a loaded .45.

That said there's a qualitative moral difference between easing someone's pain in a way that may hasten death and killing them to ease their pain. Almost no one who argues against MAID is arguing for "all medical interventions, forever".

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#639

My Canadian parents are in their 80's so naturally a lot of their friends of the same age are dying. And two of them have been via MAID. In one case, which was surprising to me, a man who had survived cancer - he was not terminal but certainly wasn't getting any better - elected to die via MAID after his wife died. She passed, he called his doctor and less than a week later he was also dead. He got a chance to visit…

My grandparents were way to with it to suffer as much as they did. It was honestly traumatising to watch.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#640

After watching my father die with COPD, it because obvious that euthanasia happens in the US all the time. He opted out of lung-reduction surgery and was ready to die. So the hospital withheld IV hydration and provided a morphine drip and he was gone in 36 hours. How long can one live without water, a few days max? So that's what killed him. My sister-in-law who's a physician told me that's how it's typically done. I…

> So the hospital withheld IV hydration and provided a morphine drip and he was gone in 36 hours. I watched loved ones die this way. It's cruel, absurd and grotesque. A doctor will look you dead in the eye and say "your loved one will be dead within a few days" and instead of killing them mercifully you are forced to watch them die of dehydration. A maddening and indefensible relic that I believe younger generations…

I believe younger generations will abolish.

I wouldn’t count on it. I’ve learned young people are just the same as everyone else. I hope I’m wrong but I used to think they had more empathy. Let’s see.,

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